It’s April and everything is waking up again in our Pennsylvania climate. Once again, we get to watch as the astonishing beauty and complexity of our natural world emerges for another annual cycle. Where I live, writing in mid-March, the snow bells are in bloom, some of the early blooming magnolia trees have well-developed buds, a few insects have emerged, and I am trying to savor these wonders rather than give in to my despair at the news.
There are many books celebrating the other forms of life that share our amazing planet. In honor of Earth Month, this article is about some of my favorites, and I would love to hear yours – email me here and I’ll mention them in future Sylvanian issues.
One of the most endearing books I know is A Hummingbird in My House: The Story of Squeak. Author Arnette Heidcamp, already a hummingbird devotee, documents the winter she spent hosting a hummingbird that failed to migrate and could not have survived had she not taken it in. She does everything she can think of to improvise suitable food and habitat. You can read this in an evening, there are lots of photographs, and the family might even enjoy hearing it read out loud.
Wild Kinship: Biophilia, Inner Knowings and Our True Nature. As you might guess from the title, this is not a one-evening read. It is a lengthy and deeply thoughtful book by journalist and biologist Saroya about the relationship of humans to nature. This is one to keep on the bedside table -- read some each night instead of watching the news and fall asleep reflecting on nature. Biophilia is the idea that we are innately drawn to nature and need to find that connection within ourselves.
‘A simpler life would be one of deeper awareness of our kinship to the rest of life, as well as meeting only our absolute needs. A simpler life would be one of greater resilience, much more skill, and an intrinsic understanding of how Nature works as part of ourselves.’ From Wild Kinship.
There are wonderful books about wildlife species we are losing, as a result of direct or indirect human impacts. The recent Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Vanishing Creatures by Katherine Rundell, describes many we are losing or have already lost -- some surprising, such as several subspecies of raccoons. The book is a series of essays about the extraordinary features and abilities of these animals.
The best book I have ever read about plants is Zoe Schlanger’s The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth. Schlanger is an award-winning science writer who has reported extensively about the environment and climate change. She became fascinated by what was occurring in the field of botany and shares the current state of research findings, which are pretty amazing. Plants have been demonstrated to have extensive powers of communication, the ability to manufacture chemicals, and the ability to rapidly modify their genes in response to environmental stresses.
University of Delaware Entomology professor, Doug Tallamy, has almost single-handedly turned gardeners throughout the U.S. into native plant and insect enthusiasts. All of his books are remarkable and inspiring, from his 2007 Bringing Nature Home: How You Can Sustain Wildlife with Native Plants, to his 2019 New York Times Bestseller, Nature’s Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard. If you garden, even a few containers on a balcony, Tallamy tells you about plants you can grow to help save the ecosystem -- the plants that evolved here, that sustain the insects that depend on them, and that nourish the wildlife that depends on those plants and insects.
Let’s all take time out, especially now, from protecting the natural world to observing and appreciating it.
This blog was included as part of the April 2025 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!